Hello BigBadGuber

i got sent a e7 as replacemnt and tbh at first you wont like the phone but use it for like a week. getting use to where everything is and how things work shortcuts etc its not bad.

most important was that browser hopefully firefox makes 1 for symb 3. remote was good on n900 i used it more to show off . and another thing my e7 it lags alot you have to be really careful of how many items you are running and doing some times.

U meen, all faild companies use WP?

This man here,

He makes sense

Imo both devices sound good, but they are two seperate things to be honest, im going to say it now, e7 is not the computer the n900 is, but imo the n900 is not the Phone the e7 is, they're two different things,

And i thought n900 gpu wasnt used at all for n900 gui ops etc?

The important thing to remember is that ndi has posted a review of his experience with the E7, and has done the brilliant job of doing so from the point of view of someone who owned an N900, a device most of the people on this forum use. But now some users are starting to think about a newer device, and the E7 seems to be the best Nokia option if you need a full qwerty kb. So I think he's done a good job. We know that the E7 doesn't run maemo5, and we know the N900 doesn't run S3 (yet!) so the whole post compares the two devices while being very objective. I think some people in these forums are timewasters who just yell and scream and troll and don't help inform and contribute very little to people's decision making process.
Thanks again for this E7 review - I think it's informative and very useful.

Some more questions if you don't mind:

Have you installed Sleeping Screen or Bubbles or any of the other BetaLabs offerings? How does it cope with these apps if you have?

Do you find the speaker being muffled when it's lying on a table, or is the volume good enough?

Do you think it's too big and heavy for a trouser pocket?

Symbian Belle promises to bring even more improvements over Anna. Do you think with Belle the E7 could be close to perfect?

Cheers!

Thank you.

... are best ignored.

Without a Maemo device, that's basically why I'm here - help with whatever else I can.

- Have you installed Sleeping Screen or Bubbles or any of the other BetaLabs offerings? How does it cope with these apps if you have?

No Sleeping screen, I like having battery to spare. I imagine it can be turned off and that it's not heavy, but you don't know you'll need more battery until you do. It'll take me a while to get a "feel" of E7's consumption, I'm still set on GMT+N900 and the jet lag is causing me to auto-stop all activities after an hour or two.

I make it home with 60% left. Again the desert parable would be appropriate, but I hate repetition.

I did install "other" beta labs stuff. I like LiveView, an augmented reality app that uses GPS and compass to overlay POIs from own' database and Nokia's over the camera live view. It has tap on the POI to get info, such as contact and newer versions support "sending", so, in theory, one can one-click (ish) set a meeting at a cafe in view. The said POI can be 1 km away, so it really could work to set up a meeting. Pretty cool.

I also installed "situations". It's cool, could be much cooler, but it's beta so It's most likely becoming cooler every day. Situations is kind of like a profile, except larger (can associate power saving to a profile, allowing "economy" profile). Also added to a profile is a list of conditions, like time (range), GPS position, cell tower collection, certain wifis, etc. There are in theory many applications, like setting it to be quieter when at home or office and loud everywhere else. Also, I use silent overnight.

You can switch situations just like profiles, from power button, however, if you manually change to a profile that is not "general" or a situation, it deactivates all automation, so going "silent" manually doesn't go back to loud because GPS had a sneeze.

It's very useful, except a few small details: I doesn't allow to switch wifi off yet, or put desktop widgets to offline, so my "economy" profile is half-useful.

The page suggests I use it as "Watching TV" and "Driving". While "Driving" is realistic if you have a car kit, which auto-connects to E7, TV is not automatic and if I'm going to switch, I'll do it to Silent and be done with it.

It's still useful. At 12 AM, it says "beep" in a soft voice and it moves to silent. In the morning, it goes back. When battery low, it goes powersaving. When at work, to goes loud. When I start BT headphones, it goes to BT.

Plus, it supports launching apps or links when switching, so in theory you could have it report when it detects being at work, home, in the bar, etc.

It's more cool than useful for me, but I didn't join the Beta Labs for useful.

I'll try more, but for now I'm profiling consumption, getting to know the phone, etc. There's gonna be time for fun later.

- Do you find the speaker being muffled when it's lying on a table, or is the volume good enough?

The speaker is a very thin slot, so it's easy to cover with hand (soft) when you want quick-mute, but it's mounted on the slanted side of the phone.

As a result, it's not covered by the table or any hard surfaces, if anything reflecting the sound makes it even louder. It does, however, have a thin aperture on table so, if used on a soft material, like a cloth, it will be muffled.

Personally, I don't have any cloth tables so thus far I haven't had any issues with making it louder. If anything, it sometimes surprises me in quiet situations and I have to get used to the position so I can put my finger over the slot faster. It's a matter of habit, I still tend to grab it by the sides, N900-style.

- Do you think it's too big and heavy for a trouser pocket?

N900: 181g, 111x60x20 mm (thickest)
_E7_: 176g, 123x62x14 (rounded up)

As you can see, it FEELS heavier because it's smaller and the weight surprises you, but it's actually as heavy as N900.

It is 1cm taller, but other than that it is as wide as N900 and slimmer considerably, which makes the perimeter that takes up cloth as:

E7: 13.6+13.6+62=98.2 mm (I am aware cloth is not glued to sides, but each pocket is different and measurement is proportional to depth, so I'll leave it at that).

N900: 20+20+60=100 mm (being thicker, the angle of cloth is different, but generally speaking)

So, as you see, if you pocket holds N900, it will hold E7. Don't get smart about my math, I know I rounded a lot and that N900 is 20mm with camera, but what is important is visible: the both use the same pocket space.

If anything, by being slimmer it is more comfortable than the N900. It is also sturdier (metal construction, glass). N900 is more lump-like.

The centimeter in height could be an issue, but only if your pocket barely-holds N900, in which case I imagine it sometimes falls out.

Overall, save for very short pockets, it's smaller or the same.

Oh, one more. It's slippery. If you used shirt front pocket, don't.

- Symbian Belle promises to bring even more improvements over Anna. Do you think with Belle the E7 could be close to perfect?

Well, this is a subjective question.

There's this line, an axis, that starts from zero, which is "I would throw it in a lake if the GPS would be working so I could find one", through a 5 "fine, I'll keep it, but it makes me wonder why it's not in a lake every damned day", to a 10 "oohhhhh".

N900 was all over the place. Some things were at 2, others were at 8, and, even with a nice average, it needed an update like a skydiver needs a parachute. (Hint: it didn't get it

E7 is much more linear, with few extremely new and revolutionary stuff, but with few flaws, hovering at +/-1.

The new enhancements on Symbian are nice, and will push the device up a notch, but it's not the notch from 4 to 5, so it's not like it would be groundbreaking. I like some of the stuff they want to do, order the UI (I complained in the review), unify some stuff, etc. These are nice things, but without grave flaws it's hard to get giddy about it.

I want the updates, I'm kind of tired of tapping menu, the slide, then exit, the X in the top right corner of N900 has spoiled me.

What I really like about these updates is that they are merging my beloved N900 features into my beloved E7 hardware.

If I could, I'd have E7 and N900 with me, they are quite different devices. I'd use N900 to use VNC, SeriesFinale, browse some sites, chat, fiddle, enjoy the UI and E7 to call, message, video call, use frequent sites, Office and play.

Ever so slowly, they are merging the UI from Maemo/Meego and Symbian, taking the good stuff from both. Let's face it, most "enhancements" in Symbian are Maemo: streamlined UI, back button, enhanced/active status menu, QT.

Over time, apps I miss will be ported, UI will be streamed, themes enhanced, and more and more of what I loved from N900 will find its way into E7.

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

N900 is full flash but until 9.4 only. Anything above that u cant open

For internet surfing straight go for Android OS or iOS.

I got a trial e7 from WOMWorldNokia, and i'm impressed. The screen is great, the battery life is incredible, i've had no lags whatsoever, the keyboard is a pure joy to use, call quality is great, and there's some really decent social apps (fMobi and Gravity). The quality of apps is good, there's almost every app most people want (cept for some official ones like IMDB), and i love that it has a document creator built in.

All in all i'd be very happy with it as my main phone. Sure, it's no N900 in many regards, but it does other things better than the N900. Aside from the Linux diehards i think we need to realise that there isn't going to be a real successor anytime soon to the N900, so it's finding the best option.

According to Adobe, FL4 is Flash 10.1, minus optimizations that rely heavily on CPU, like gradients and such. In theory, it should work, but be uglier.

It's hard to find actual differences, and the best I've seen thus far is here. There is documentation available but unless you know what the API calls do it's hard to get a grip.

Frankly, I couldn't care less if Farmville loads on E7 - some of that stuff brings my PC to its knees, even if it would work on E7 it would have been a horrendous experience. Not that it worked on N900, but I just don't care.

What I care about is video, and basic flash, like navigation and extensions to pages. And those work in the majority of cases.

As for performance, well, it's not the device's fault, it's that as web development becomes easier, the bar is lowered and the smoldering craters that call themselves web developers (don't even get me started on people calling themselves coders or programmers) keep on spewing huge pages, like it's free, just because they don't pay for it.

Google.com: 11K (41K) - about 40 for results
Yahoo.com: 40K (550K)
Facebook.com: 500K (600K)
Engadget.com: 200K(1600K)

Above are HTML and, in parentheses, the size of the page complete with images and objects - the "full size". The HTML-only is a hint on how soon the browser can start rendering and the latter on how long it will take.

As you can see, some have a hint of decency, others don't. And might I add, Engadget's is quite clean, click down and it's even worse.

Facebook, e.g., has large amounts of text and divs and tabs, but fewer images. This is "news feed" page, no scrolling down. Grows worse after a while.

Now.

What with triparound and lags, each object takes a while to get where it needs to be, plus redirects, so it's not a direct correlation, but roughly speaking getting to Google and loading the first page of results is about 20 times faster than Engaget's first page - if we ignore the complexity and size of the page.

Each additional object needs time to be requested, so that kind of matters - 100 1K jpegs are slower to load than 1 100K JPEG. Let's see:

Google: 2 objects (2 png)
Facebook: 8 (avatars and stuff)
Yahoo: 19 (hm)
Engadget: 96

And that's why in low-ping conditions, like multiple routers, wifi, corner-of-network one is WAY slower than the other.

I may have picked on them, but E's page is not the worst. Some people just don't care any more, and browsers are slow, bandwidth is wasted, and RAM gets eaten at a phenomenal rate.

We can never have "desktop" experience until mobiles have 3GHz cores to take on that bathtub of ashes that is Flash, until RAM on devices doesn't go above 2G and until people stop adding stuff to pages until it gives out.

Which one do you think is going to be first?

Yeah. We need more RAM.

It depends on the webpage that is loaded of course.
There are webpages that need a lot of time even on a fast
desktop with IE or Firefox.
And it depends on connection.

At least the iPhones and Androids that I've seen were not in any way "smoother" than my N900.
The people that I watched over their shoulders on underground and trains with Androids and iPhones always had a browser rendering that was more of the sort "wait...wait...wooosh...there it is" whereas my N900 builds up parts of the browsed page time by time, but that in a speed that I am used from my desktop (most of the time).
So maybe the latter makes the impression it is sluggish and the first impression with that "woosh" at the end gives a more
faster subjective feeling.The time that is needed till the full page is up on the screen seems to be the same (although not measured).

What is definitely smoother on the N900 is scrolling of webpages,
enlargement of webpages and alike.
At least compared to the iPhones and Androids that I've seen.